For-profit companies have one mission - to increase revenue and profits. They owe it to their shareholders to sell as much of their products and services as they can, and they run marketing campaigns to do so. They owe it to their shareholders to set prices as high as they can, and they seek patents and eliminate competition to do so. Th…
For-profit companies have one mission - to increase revenue and profits. They owe it to their shareholders to sell as much of their products and services as they can, and they run marketing campaigns to do so. They owe it to their shareholders to set prices as high as they can, and they seek patents and eliminate competition to do so. This is what being a for-profit business means.
The problem is that, in America (and almost no where else), healthcare is a for-profit business. This means that American healthcare companies are driven to sell us as much healthcare as they can (America is one of the only countries that allows direct-to-consumer advertising for healthcare). And American healthcare companies are driven to charge as much as they can for their products and services. Yet healthcare is not like other businesses. Consumers can’t put off the cardiac surgery or the insulin purchase until there’s a sale. They can’t shop around for the best deal on a knee replacement. As a result, Americans pay twice as much (or more), per capita, as other developed nations do for healthcare. And our health and life expectancy is much worse.
Someday historians will look back on our for-profit healthcare system and deem it an abomination, while they wonder why we ever allowed it. They will note the brutality of a system driven by greed for some, instead of good health for all. They will tally the millions upon millions of deaths and shortened lives, all in pursuit of shareholder value. There’s a reason healthcare is “socialized” everywhere except in the US. It’s because socialized medicine is the humane, decent, moral approach - the approach that provides the best healthcare outcomes for all, instead of the highest returns on investment. For-profit medicine is obscene.
And another thing: there’s much handwringing going on today about our inability to continue to fund Medicaid and Medicare. You know what would fix that, without raising taxes OR curtailing healthcare? Socialized medicine. The US spends, today, about 18% of our GDP on healthcare. That amounts to $13,000 per capita, per year. Countries with socialized medicine, including Canada, Germany, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan and the UK, spend half of that, or less (Canada, for example, spends $5900 per capita). And, by all measures, their health is better. We could fix many problems in the US, including budget deficits, by adopting Medicare for All, and ending for-profit medicine. Doing so means defeating wealthy and powerful lobbyists and corporations. Which is why it hasn’t happened. Yet.
For-profit companies have one mission - to increase revenue and profits. They owe it to their shareholders to sell as much of their products and services as they can, and they run marketing campaigns to do so. They owe it to their shareholders to set prices as high as they can, and they seek patents and eliminate competition to do so. This is what being a for-profit business means.
The problem is that, in America (and almost no where else), healthcare is a for-profit business. This means that American healthcare companies are driven to sell us as much healthcare as they can (America is one of the only countries that allows direct-to-consumer advertising for healthcare). And American healthcare companies are driven to charge as much as they can for their products and services. Yet healthcare is not like other businesses. Consumers can’t put off the cardiac surgery or the insulin purchase until there’s a sale. They can’t shop around for the best deal on a knee replacement. As a result, Americans pay twice as much (or more), per capita, as other developed nations do for healthcare. And our health and life expectancy is much worse.
Someday historians will look back on our for-profit healthcare system and deem it an abomination, while they wonder why we ever allowed it. They will note the brutality of a system driven by greed for some, instead of good health for all. They will tally the millions upon millions of deaths and shortened lives, all in pursuit of shareholder value. There’s a reason healthcare is “socialized” everywhere except in the US. It’s because socialized medicine is the humane, decent, moral approach - the approach that provides the best healthcare outcomes for all, instead of the highest returns on investment. For-profit medicine is obscene.
And another thing: there’s much handwringing going on today about our inability to continue to fund Medicaid and Medicare. You know what would fix that, without raising taxes OR curtailing healthcare? Socialized medicine. The US spends, today, about 18% of our GDP on healthcare. That amounts to $13,000 per capita, per year. Countries with socialized medicine, including Canada, Germany, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan and the UK, spend half of that, or less (Canada, for example, spends $5900 per capita). And, by all measures, their health is better. We could fix many problems in the US, including budget deficits, by adopting Medicare for All, and ending for-profit medicine. Doing so means defeating wealthy and powerful lobbyists and corporations. Which is why it hasn’t happened. Yet.
Amén, and thank you for polishing the mirror that reveals this truth.
"The problem is that, in America (and almost no where else), healthcare is a for-profit business." John R, you nailed it.